The most revealing thought in Cooke’s essay is his explanation for why he feels it is safe to go with the Trumpian flow: “Conservatism in this country long predated Trump; for now, it is tied up with Trump; soon, it will have survived Trump.”

That’s not really an accurate characterization of Cooke’s point. His contention is that Rubin hates Trump so much that she’s attacking positions she once defended, just because Trump shares them, and vice versa. Cooke’s point is that if Rubin is a conservative, she should defend conservative principles, not allow her views to be shaped entirely by personal animus for Donald Trump. He’s right about that. But Frum has a point here:

This is something many conservatives tell themselves, but it’s not even slightly true. Trump is changing conservatism into something different. We can all observe that. Will it snap back afterward?

You can believe this only if you imagine that ideologies exist independently of the human beings who espouse them—and that they can continue unchanged and unchanging despite fluctuations in their human adherents. In this view, millions of American conservatives may build their political identities on enthusiastic support for Donald Trump—but American conservatism will continue humming in the background as if none of those human commitments mattered at all.

More:

Conservatism is what conservatives think, say, and do. As conservatives change—as much through the harsh fact of death and birth as by the fluctuations of opinion—so does what it means to be a conservative.

The Trump presidency is a huge political fact. He may not be the leader of American conservatism, but he is its most spectacular and vulnerable asset. The project of defending him against his coming political travails—or at least of assailing those who doubt and oppose him—is already changing what it means to be a conservative. The word conservative will of course continue in use. But its meaning is being rewritten day by day by the actions of those who lay claim to the word.

This is why I just shake my head at conservatives who think Trump is an aberration, a Cromwellian interregnum before the Restoration of the monarchy, so to speak. It is certainly true, at least right now, that Trump is cultivating no heirs apparent. But the idea that right-of-center voters will have learned their lesson by voting for Trump, and will come home to the traditional GOP — that’s bonkers.

Think of how Trump (and to a much lesser extent, Roy Moore) is changing what it means to be an Evangelical. American Evangelicalism, like American conservatism, is a broad and durable movement that was here a long time before Donald Trump showed up, and will be here after he leaves. But the way so many white Evangelicals have embraced Trump really is changing Evangelicalism — this, even though Trump is not even an Evangelical! It is impossible to see how white Evangelicalism can return to the status quo ante after Trump leaves office.

Political parties and movements are more like Evangelical churches than like the Catholic Church. They don’t have deposits of clearly defined doctrine that define them, and that stand outside of history. On the other hand, it must be admitted that this is overblown even in the Catholic Church, which has a well-defined doctrinal code and offices to interpret it. It looks solid as a rock from the outside, but once you get inside, you find that for most Catholics today, Catholicism is what Catholics say, and do. This has a lot to do with the diminishment of the authority of Catholic ecclesial elites over the past 60 years, because of vast cultural changes. Still, if you want to know what the Catholic Church teaches and demands that its adherents believe, you can find it written down. There are structural barriers within Catholicism to rapid change. Political parties don’t have those brakes.

A recognition that innovation must be tied to existing traditions and customs, which entails a respect for the political value of prudence.

Which of these general principles describes popular American conservatism today? Maybe No. 4, with smidge of No. 1, most of them people who take the Jeffress Option. I subscribe to Kirk’s Canons, but I can’t pretend that they are much in evidence outside of the religious, literary, and philosophical circles I frequent.

The truth is, they probably haven’t been for a long time, because the world that produced Kirkian traditionalism has been largely obliterated by mass culture, consumerism, media, and technology. The fact that so many conservatives responded to my 2002 cover story in National Review describing “crunchy cons” (my name for 21st-century conservatives who are more or less Kirkians) by treating it as if I were trying to smuggle liberalism in through the back door revealed how little influence Kirk’s ideas have on the contemporary conservative mind. (Alas for the contemporary conservative mind!)

What do you call Kirkian conservatives in the age of Trump? Reactionaries? What? All I can tell you is that I identify less and less with what people mean today when they use the word “conservative.” Then again, it’s been like that for me for about a decade, so I’m used to it. It’s kind of vain to say that we are the true conservatives. At least orthodox Catholics who affirm the Church’s doctrinal teachings can appeal to an authoritative standard. Political parties — unless, like the Communist parties, they are run like religious cults — don’t have authoritative standards.

It makes no sense to speak of “conservatism,” when what we really have are conservatisms, plural. But there is such a thing as mainstream conservatism, and for better or for worse, Trump guides its course. For an institution like National Review, which since Ronald Reagan appeared on the scene has considered itself a leading standard-bearer of mainstream conservatism, the wrestling with the meaning of Trump, especially after Trump is gone, will be difficult and consequential. In a sense, NR has been there before, when it was a Goldwaterite magazine when the GOP was in the hands of Rockefeller Republicans. But Reaganism is exhausted, and it is entirely unclear what will replace it, if not Trumpism.

Whatever comes next will have had to have reckoned with Trumpism. My personal hope would be for a J.D. Vance-ist Republican Party, one that takes the best parts of Trumpist populism, and combines it with competence, decency, and prudence. But that’s going to be a ways away.

Anyway, I digress. My basic point is that whatever calls itself “conservatism” will not have survived Trump, if by “survive” one means emerges from him relatively unchanged. It’s not so much the substantive changes Trump will have made (there may not be many) as it is the role he played in knocking off the GOP’s and the conservative movement’s traditional elites. The definition of “conservatism” is going to be fluid for a long time after Trump, in part because of Trump, and in part because of the intensification of the broader cultural and technological forces that brought Trump to the presidency.

Those same cultural and technological forces are going to change the Democratic Party too. It will be fascinating if Democratic primary voters in 2020 allow the party’s traditional elites to foist another establishment candidate upon them. If you were a liberal Democrat, wouldn’t you be looking for someone fresh and dynamic? Would you really want to trust the people who brought you Hillary Clinton, the one prominent Democrat who could lose an election to Donald Trump?

MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Hide 147 comments

147 Responses to Conservatism After Trump

I haven’t read all the comments, so it may have already been stated by others, but I’m not ready to abandon the word “conservative” just yet. Words have meaning and “conservative”, at least as an adjective, accurately describes a way of viewing and thinking about the world. In fact, taking the time to point out misuse of the term can prove very educational to those who think “conservative = member of the Fox News hive mind”.

“Evangelical” is more problematic, as it’s almost more of a description of what people aren’t (Roman Catholic, Mainline Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Charismatic) than what they are (Christians who emphasize having a personal relationship with Christ). Recent Pew research shows that many who identify as “Evangelical” actually hold beliefs that are diametrically opposed to historic orthodox Christianity. At this point “Evangelical” means little more than “deist who affirm Jesus is/was a good guy.”

In the end all of this may be a good thing, in so far as it forces folks to choose their words more carefully and engage in actual dialog rather than carelessly applying labels.

As a member of the “American Left” (by the way, capital letters aren’t necessary- it’s not like The American Conservative), I can say pretty confidently your understanding of what is or isn’t loved is pretty inaccurate.
I don’t recall seeing any representation of the ‘American Right’ demonstrating against the WTO in Seattle. The loudest opposition to the TTP and TTIP has come from leftist NGO’s & publications.

I have to agree – the establishment left is very pro-mass immigration and anti-enforcement (calling them “open borders” is only a minor hyperbole), but they are much more split on “free trade” and much less “pro-free trade” than the establishment right. Of course, the rank-and-file of both parties are much more immigration restrictionist and against “free trade” than their respective establishments.

I think what differentiates him from Rubin is that he actually understands that Trump was hitting on issues that are important to the base and that the GOP needs to address these.

Rubin essentially thinks that the problem is that the base has gotten too uppity and needs to be punished.

Basically, in her mind the GOP only exists for the purpose of pushing an agenda on a very narrow range of foreign policy issues (both military and economic). Everything else the GOP stands for is essentially there only to appeal to those disgusting voters that it needs in order to control the government, and she only tolerates the GOP to the extent that it addresses her narrow concerns.

She is perfectly willing to undermine the interests of the GOP voters while using them to get the policies she wants. Once the GOP is of no more use to her, she no longer even pretends to care, and would be just as happy to see the GOP and its voters disappear.

That’s why I call her a parasite.

Frum on the other hand either agrees with the base on some issues, or at least is willing to let them have their way as long as he gets his way on other issues. He is either at least partly a “plain” conservative (as opposed to being simply a neoconservative), or else wants to engage in mutually beneficial symbiosis with plain conservatives. On such considerations is coalition politics built.

I strongly disagree with the notions that a) conservatism is what self proclaimed conservatives say it is and b) the ideology that is American conservatism is subject to change

Frum has an answer for you in his article. He wrote:

Conservatives in 1964 opposed civil-rights laws. Conservatives in 1974 opposed tax cuts unless paid for by spending cuts. Conservatives in 1984 opposed same-sex marriage. Conservatives in 1994 opposed trade protectionism. Conservatives in 2004 opposed people who equated the FBI and Soviet Union’s KGB. All those statements of conservative ideology have gone by the boards

What has happened over the last 30 years is the Republicans have continued to act like gentlemen with standards and rules, whilst the Left have become progressively lawless and ruthless. The Left has won everything in the last 40 years, because the Republicans have been rule following standard keepers

Oh, puleeze. Remember the so-called “Hastert Rule”? Or how the GOP refused to even hold a hearing for Judge Merrick? Or McConnell’s famous pre-Obama-inaugration meeting where he convinced the entire GOP to oppose everything (resulting in smashing all filibuster records to smithereens)? Or getting rid of so-called “blue slips” for judges?

But nothing, and I mean nothing, he has done is one iota as bad as electing Hillary would have been.

I’m actually feeling somewhere between good and complacent that Hillary Clinton didn’t get to make judicial appointments. And I didn’t really like Garland Merrick. But I don’t have a good opinion of Trump’s appointments either. I think it is almost impossible to say with integrity that what Trump has done is better, or worse, than what Clinton would have done. They were two different nightmares, and this is the one we woke up into. May it be mercifully short, and may the other one never darken our horizon again.

Says the guy who howls on this blog about voter ID laws as “racist voter suppression”. Words have meanings, indeed.

Although it may have escaped Noah172’s attention, there are many ramifications to voter ID laws that have nothing to do with immigration whatsoever. Most, if not all, of those disfranchised are native born American citizens. Some are also veterans.

I am old enough to remember a time when it made sense that, as I later read, a senate committee interrogating a state department functionary about just how democratic this regime in Saigon we were propping up really was, was told “Senator, I know Americans would never put up with having to carry photo ID, but its different over there.” I used to think carrying an identity card was a feature of the Bourbon Restoration in France.

I would add to Scott PA’s list:

A nation that is ashamed of its president cannot be confident in its future.

[NFR: Wait, so even when these policies were pursued by right-wing politicians, it’s still a victory for the left? You can’t simply say that “the left” = “people who pursue policies that I don’t like.” Besides which, show me where Trump is shrinking the government, winning the culture war, restoring lost liberties, restoring American industry, etc. To be clear: show me where he is actually doing these things, not just talking about them. — RD]

Even under Reagan the Left took ground, and no ground had been taken back from before the Reagan era. Too many gentlemen republicans.

Trump is cutting regulation, however, if you haven’t noticed, he is in a war with the deepstate bureaucracy. Once he finishes with them. He will have removed “6 levels of management ” as forepromised.
Returning lost liberties is long process of deconstruction, its not going to start till a second term.
The culture war has been lost before Trump was elected, reviving Christian culture is beyond any politician.

Returning lost industry was trumps platform, against globalist deindustrialisation, this tax reform will bring trillions back into the US economy. Low taxes and future tariffs open US factories with US workers, simple, Pat has been talking about this for years, Trump is now doing it.

Force individuals to sell their businesses, investments, and real estate and give the government 1/4 or 1/3 right off the top?

Mind you, I’m not agreeing with your prescription, as I’m not a fan of economic warfare for the purpose of vote buying, which has always been a scheme of the left. Just pointing out that logistical hole in your strategy…

“You watch: Trump might cost the GOP the House in 2018, and possibly the Senate. — RD]”

The establishment republicans are Democrats Rod, they already hold both the house and senate. The Rinos are heal dragging and obstructing all they can until the Dems formally take the hill.

I judge trump by the quality of his enemies, there are so many establishment leftists in both parties that hate fact they have no control over Trump, he is beholden to no one. The CFR hates him, the UN hates him, the leftist media hate him, and with all this, he must be doing something right. He is hated by all the worst actors.

So, to cite a leftist calling for open borders, you pick…Alex Tabarrok? Mercatus Center Alex Tabarrok? You…you do know that he’s a libertarian, right? That open borders is a largely libertarian project? Also, that libertarians and leftists are not the same thing?

“Could you cite any single leftist, today, who speaks positively about national sovereignty, citizenship, and borders?”

“Ultimately, our nation, like all nations, has the right and obligation to control its borders and set laws for residency and citizenship. And no matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million who broke these laws should be held accountable.” – Barack Hussein Obama, ( http://www.american.edu/media/president_obama_visit_transcript.cfm )

Although it may have escaped Noah172’s attention, there are many ramifications to voter ID laws that have nothing to do with immigration whatsoever

I wasn’t positing any connection between immigration and voter ID. I was pointing out a topic (just one example) about which JonF uses ridiculous and fact-free hyperbole, since he was criticizing other commenters for using the term “open borders”.

Stop giving breaks to capital over labor income. There is no reason why workers should have to pay higher rates than investors.

Raise both taxes and services for everyone.

Other countries citizens don’t mind higher taxes because they get something for the money. There’s no reason why we can’t have universal healthcare coverage that doesn’t drive people to bankruptcy. It would add financial security, which is what many families desire. This would also allow more people to take risks like starting their own business without having to worry about the financial ramifications if a family member gets sick.

We could also do more to encourage high density affordable housing (and less suburban sprawl). With denser housing we could have better mass transit systems and more efficient public utilities in general. Moreover, we could reap the economic rewards density has to offer. There are a ton more opportunities for businesses when you have many potential customers nearby.

One thing I’ve noticed the most hard core of Trump supporters hate is immigrants. Nothing else is even close. The problem is, the immigrants aren’t the ones running things. They’re just eager but usually poor individuals looking for a better life.

The real problem is wealth inequality. But why fight wealth inequality when you can just scapegoat the poorest among us?

Mass immigration of workers is a cause of wealth inequality. Flooding the labor market with labor so that wages stay low is a major goal of many rich people. Why do you suppose the the Chamber of Commerce and the Wall Street Journal are so dedicated to more immigration (the Wall Street Journal has called literally for “open borders”).

What you are saying is like saying “why fight smoking when we should be looking to fight lung cancer,” or “why fight for safer sex/less promiscuity when we should be fighting AIDS” or, perhaps for a WWII analogy: “why are we fighting drafted German soldiers when we should be fighting the Nazi politicians?”

Immigration is being used as a weapon. You can’t fight the enemy without fighting its foot soldiers, whether or not they are the cause of the conflict.

A good deal of that regulation is wholesome and necessary. As has been pointed out before, the first think bank robbers want to do is repeal as much regulation of bank robbery as possible, reduce funding for police so there aren’t enough to stop them, etc.

A careful pruning of regulations that have grown over time and are getting in each other’s way as well as confusing citizens would be useful. Its not what Trump is doing, nor what he is constitutionally disposed to do.

A better question would be, how would you fight wealth inequality?

Heavy reliance on inheritance taxes, so that the dead pay as much as possible of the cost of government, after a reasonable opportunity to enjoy their gains during their lifetime. I support exemption under some level, like the first $500,000 of an estate, or even a million or two. But after that, tax it heavily. Let the next generation earn their own way in the world.

Inheritance tax won’t cover everything, so a simple but steeply graduated income tax is entirely appropriate. Take half of all income over $2 million. Nobody ever walked away from a million dollars because they would only get to keep half of it.

As automation progresses, some sort of guaranteed annual income would allow ALL people to share in the benefits of automation, rather than only those who own the robots.

Amend the anti-trust laws to very nearly forbid mergers and acquisitions. Break up any financial institution that has become “too big to fail.”

When an enterprise becomes a social necessity, rather than an option, treat it as a public utility, either regulating it as such, or as the original investors die off, appropriate it as public property.

Now we all know that a state-run socialist enterprise can be as unresponsive to consumers and as cruel to workers as “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company.” So some creative work is needed to break up government monopolies into competing options with any profits being returned to workers and consumers. But it can be done.

I’m not a fan of economic warfare for the purpose of vote buying, which has always been a scheme of the left.

Always assuming the worst of motivationswith whom you disagree?

I suspect that “compassion” was a motivating factor. It’s easy to say “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”, but what if the person doesn’t even have bootstraps (or, as Rod compassionately wrote last summer: what if you were born with arms to short to reach your bootstraps).

Sometimes folks get into economic trouble due to unfortunate circumstances, and need some temporary help until they an stand on their feet.

Senator Parry Murray’s family was on welfare a while when their breadwinner, their father, a Purple Heart veteran, was struck with MS.

Sheesh — even Paul Ryan benefited from Soc Sec benefits when he was a teenager!

The GOP is doing it’s best to live up to the left’s stereotype of them: “benefits for me, but not for thee”

This common phrase I read in lots of these kinds of pieces, “…right-of-center voters will have learned their lesson…” highlights part of the colonialistic problem to which those right-of-center voters are revolting against.

Likewise the problem they are up in arms about is not “elitism” writ large, it is the fact the “elitists” are so awful in our day.

At any rate, let me agree with your statement that if you’re ashamed of your country’s president you cannot be confident about your country’s future. During the eight Obama years I was ashamed to have a Marxist-Leninist president, and I was not confident about the country’s future. I’m still not, actually.

Take cheer. The demography is all on your side. This Trumpian episode is a minor speed bump on the way to Venezuela or Zimbabwe, or whatever dystopia the radicals have in store for us.

No, sir. You, Jenkins, and DC Wonk will have to make due with the 40% of GDP already being taken via taxation or borrowering by the combined federal, state, and local government. That’s a big slice of the pie to remedy inequality with. I wouldn’t trust a bureaucracy that wanted to take more than that, because it will never be enough, frankly.

Presently, $1 trillion is spent annually on means-tested government benefits, Medicaid included, I’m not even including entitlements.

If every dollar of that was directed to the bottom 20% of households, the working poor, each family would receive a check for $40,000, which is more than half of median income.

Think about how inefficient your redistribution schemes are in light of those facts. Maybe you good progressives ought to put your money where you mouth is and donate to the U.S. Treasury instead of trying to force other people to pay higher taxes?

I only make median income where I live, but I know for certain that at least 1/3 of the wealthy nationwide identify as liberal or progessive. So wy don’t they donate more of their wealth and income to the state?

Sorry, folks, but the burden of justifying how much money is already being taxed and spent comes first. Raising taxes comes after you’ve justified every penny you’re already spending.

And after that, when you control all three branches of government, which won’t be for a long time.

Thank goodness, because I honestly believe, you guys will never stop taxing, it’ll never be enough…

Re: I was pointing out a topic (just one example) about which JonF uses ridiculous and fact-free hyperbole.

The ridiculous hyperbole is all on the anti-immigrant side.
I have said many times here that I am all in favor of reforming our immigration laws and procedures and I have even called for a national ID card to make workplace enforcement of our laws practical. What I refuse to do is adopt panicky, racialist hysteria on the topic. The topic of immigration does need serious attention if we are to draft sober and workable laws. It does not need demagoguery and scapegoating which (as we currently in bright neon outline) mainly serves to catapult grifter politicians into office whose real agenda is to fleece whatever’s left of the middle class for the purpose of further enriching themselves and their fat-cat friends. Seeing Trump and his henchmen as friends of the working class is like seeing brothel workers as paragons of chastity.

Establishment Republicans and liberals both have an uncritical, boundless faith in progress. The liberals with their utopian, cultural Marxism, and the Republicans with their idolatry of abstract economic growth above all else. Both are unperturbed to lay waste to the traditions, customs and norms that infuse meaning into the lives of communities and individuals.

I don’t recall seeing any representation of the ‘American Right’ demonstrating against the WTO in Seattle. The loudest opposition to the TTP and TTIP has come from leftist NGO’s & publications.

I would be remiss to note that some of the most fervent voices against free trade deals have historically come from the far Left. At the same time, the Clinton/Obama/DNC Octopus has pushed the very same deals, with equal intensity and seriousness as the Republicans.

But where are they now? Are they promoting economic nationalism? Are they making alliances with the new right to revise trade and immigration policies? Or are they vandalizing Christopher Columbus statues?

Criticism of trade policies do not seem to be the central concern of the far Left, as far as I can tell. The nationalists have stolen the anti-globalization mantle, and the far left is either aligning with the globalists to stop the nationalists or they are just ineffectually acting out their typical psychodrama.

You can’t deal with trade without addressing immigration, and you can’t deal with immigration unless you can tolerate a certain level of nativism necessary for getting things done in mass politics. . . and they won’t go there, too pure. Better to make common cause with some imported scabs.

Dems would never have supported a “tax breaks for lazy rich people” bill

The Obamessiah himself supported a reduction in the top corporate income tax bracket.

Senators Schumer and Feinstein, and Governors Cuomo and Brown, have been squealing that the new bill reduces (doesn’t even eliminate) the precious, precious mortgage-interest and SALT deductions — which benefit the wealthy, especially mansion owners!

And think of the poor tax preparation business! They stand to lose billions of dollars in revenue as the increased standard deduction slashes the number of itemizers for tax season. The Democrats would have defended the accounting firms, those salt-of-the-earth people!

This bill also attempted to tax rich university endowments. I think the Democrats got that provision stripped out because of Senate rules. Democrats: defenders of Harvard’s hedge fund!

It does not need demagoguery and scapegoating which (as we currently in bright neon outline) mainly serves to catapult grifter politicians into office whose real agenda is to fleece whatever’s left of the middle class for the purpose of further enriching themselves and their fat-cat friends

When will it penetrate your armor-plated consciousness that fat cats favor mass immigration, and that most of them are opposed to Trump politically for that reason above all others?

As for demagoguery, “racist voter suppression” is a pretty good example thereof (considering that millions of black people register and vote without any hindrance).

Even before this latest tax change, the federal government collected about $20 billion from estate taxes, less than 1% of all federal revenues. For comparison, the Medicare program administrator admits that $60-70 billion per year is wasted, WASTED, in Medicare expenditures due to error and fraud.

Absolutely gorgeous. Why should anyone sign on to any of these brain-dead proposals for raising taxes with astronomical waste on that level?

And it’s extremely easy to avoid the estate tax, a bypass trust for one’s spouse up to the exemption amount is both legal and widely used.

These are stupid policy proposals, honestly. They won’t make a dent in income and wealth inequality, for the simple reason that the U.S. government is terrible at redistribution.

That, and, there’s a world of difference between absolute and relative inequality. And I’ve yet to see any of you geniuses even bring up that point.

This is why I’m routinely amused by Blue State thinking, where I happen to live: It’s not about growing the pie, just growing the state’s slice of the pie. And to hell with the unintended consequences…

Re: When will it penetrate your armor-plated consciousness that fat cats favor mass immigration, and that most of them are opposed to Trump politically for that reason above all others?

Fat cats opposed to Trump? In what alternate universe? In this one they purring very happily with that big tax cut he’s about to leave gift-wrapped under the tree.
And Noah, I’ve told you what I believe needs to be done on immigration. But I also do not see it as a first tier concern. Every discussion here does not need to be threadjacked into one about immigration.

The one inhabited by Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, George Soros, Lawrence Ellison, Michael Bloomberg, the Pritzkers, Donald Sussman, Haim Saban, Fred Eychaner, the Kochs (yes, they are Trump opponents; don’t make me embarrass you by linking to their public statements), Meg Whitman, Paul Singer, and on and on and on and on….

The universe where Trump got the lowest percentage of the vote in Manhattan for a major-party nominee… ever. The universe where wealthy enclaves everywhere in the country (I could list neighborhoods, towns, cities, counties until the cows came home) gave fewer votes to Trump than to Romney.

When I talk about fat cats, I am talking about people with net worth in the billions (google “Forbes 400”), flesh-and-blood people with names and faces and public statements and campaign finance records which are available for anyone to look at. These people are somebodies in American politics. I am also talking about election data, also freely available, from places where the census proves the locals are wealthy.

When you babble about The Rich, you are talking about:

– modestly affluent people in your personal life who piss you off, but who are basically nobodies in national politics (maybe a brother-in-law who is an obnoxious lawyer who makes 200k, or yuppie gentrifiers in Baltimore, incomes in the low six digits, who bid up the price of townhouses in the nice neighborhoods around the harbor)

– this cartoon image you and other liberals have in your heads of Old Right-Wing Racist White Men who look like the Monopoly guy with the tux and monocle

(again, look up the Forbes 400: start with the first 20 people, richest 20 in the country, mostly liberals, bunch of them were big Hillary super-PAC donors, none supported Trump in the primaries, only one significant Trump donor for the general election, none share Trump’s nationalist platform)

I just googled it. Per CNBC the US Military budget is $700 Billion. Add in the support other agencies provide the military (such as NASA launching satellites) and the VA, and the US military consumes at least $800 Billion a year. Most estimates say at least 20% of that is wasted. That means $160 Billion is wasted. I did government consulting when I was younger, and I saw incredible waste in the US military.

So, @MM says:December 21, 2017 at 9:57 pm, you complain that Medicare wastes $60B. Where is your outrage that the US military wastes 2 1/2 times that?

JeffK: “Where is your outrage that the US military wastes 2 1/2 times that?”

You’ll get no argumment from me. I was using Medicare as a prime example because the program administrator has admitted as such publicly.

The Pentagon should be audited, annually if possible. But I’m not outraged, sir, just pushing back on any argument to raise taxes given the sheer level of fraud and waste endemic in the federal, state, and local governments.

Should I ask, where is your outrage, generally?

By only mentioning the Pentagon, and ignoring the $3 trillion plus spend on mandatory entitlements, is that really a defense?

Every department is to blame, and these are minimum estimates. I didn’t even bring up SSDI, which is the single largest expenditure.

You could easily close the federal deficit by addressing these deficiencies, but no, it always comes back to raising taxes, which by definition increases fraud and waste.

I have no similar CBO report on the Social Security Administration, but I’ve read various news articles on millions of dead Americans receiving monthly checks. SSDI expenditures totaled $952 billion this year, and are expected to break $1 trillion next year:

Let’s say 10% is wasted, to be conservative. That comes to $95 billion.

Government waste doesn’t outrage me, but intentional dishonesty does.

2 1/2 times the waste, comparing departments? No sir, you inflated your numbers to make this point. 2 times Medicare at most. 1 1/2 times SSDI at most. And that’s in the absence of an independent audit of the Pentagon and SSDI.

Re: As I recall from perusing Open Secrets and similar sites, Hillary received the majority of campaign contributions from both Wall Street AND the fossil fuel industry.

What was the name of the guy who said he robbed banks because that’s where the money is? It’s the same with campaign contributions: for both parties the bulk of their campaign cash comes from very wealthy concerns. Meanwhile Hillary’s hypothetical and much maligned judges would have been at least marginally more likely to overturn the godawful “Citizen’s United” decision all but allowing legal bribery and disavow its Orwellian logic that “Money is speech”.

Re: hen you babble about The Rich, you are talking about:
– modestly affluent people in your personal life who piss you off

If this is addressed to me, Noah, I do not know any such people. I did have an uncle and aunt who were very to do, but who were miserable SOBs, but they have long since gone to judgement and their problem was that they were miserable people (their own children refused to have anything to do with them) not that they had money.
An if you can’t see that the GOP has been kowtowing to the interests of wealth and privilege then you have let your irrational dread of people swart of skin blind you more utterly than any man tapping his way with a cane and dog beside him. Yes, I know, Trump talked a good game but you see what his priorities have been. He could have told Congress to deep six the ACA business and the tax cut and instead lead with immigration and trade reform. He did not, and the last year has been an orgy of attempts to service the owning class at the expense of everyone else. And I blame the fools who vote for these for]grifters.

You, my friend, have a very interesting point of view. And I am sure you can tell all the way from your Lazy Boy the I am ‘intentionally dishonest’, and the sun is setting on my credibility. Well…

You claim that SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) is costing $952 BILLION this year. Anybody who understands large numbers recognizes the insanity of this number right off the bat.

Using round numbers, the US Economy is close to $20 Trillion. So SSDI makes up almost 1/20th of the economy? That number is absurd on it’s face, without any research. However, with some research (and it took about 5 minutes to find the relevant 2016 Social Security Admin document), you may be happy to know that

From ‘A Summary Of 2017 Annual Reports’ (with Steve Mnuchin and Tom Price being 2 of the Trustees) by the Social Security Administration, Table 2 shows that Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) was $142.8 Billion in 2016. Which is a really big number, being driven up by a wide variety of factors, one of which being SSDI is replacing welfare as a source of income across lots of red states.

Here is the link (copy it into your browser, for some reason it doesn’t act like a link):

So, I would never be one to accuse somebody of intentional dishonesty. But I would say that common sense should be used whenever somebody is spouting statistics. If the statistic seems incredible and unbelievable, it is probably incorrect.

However, I would suggest that even though it is the holiday season, one should stay off the juice before 5 pm.

PS. I bet you are a load of fun around the holiday dinner table, playing the ‘crazy uncle’ role.

I went back and reviewed a couple of MM’s posts. In one, MM says:
December 21, 2017 at 1:01 pm

Nelson: “Raise both taxes and services for everyone.”

No, sir. You, Jenkins, and DC Wonk will have to make due with the 40% of GDP already being taken via taxation or borrowering by the combined federal, state, and local government. That’s a big slice of the pie to remedy inequality with. I wouldn’t trust a bureaucracy that wanted to take more than that, because it will never be enough, frankly.”

So….. 40% of the GDP is spent by the government to remedy inequality? Insanity. Or willful inaccuracy.

40% of the GDP is spent to fund a bloated government, that’s for sure. Which includes EVERYTHING all governments spends money on. Social Security, Defense, Transportation, NASA, police, firemen, etc.

Here is the link to what the US government spends. It’s in a simple pie chart. Which shows that the US military consumes over 50% of Discretionary govt spending.

JeffK: ??? I guess there’s no point in citing official government statistics if nobody else bothers to read them.

I’ll keep this short and sweet and correct you on three points:

– U.S. real GDP is currently $17 trillion, nowhere near $20 trillion. It’s only close if you don’t adjust for inflation. That’s a fact, period, and the second time you’ve inflated numbers to make a point.
– Social Security & Disability Insurance, both parts of the program, costs $952 billion annually, as the HHS site I linked to clearly shows. That’s what I was referring to, and that’s a fact, period. Thanks for not even bothering to check the source.
– I object to increasing taxes, whether to allegedly address inequality, or anything else for that matter, based on the fact that all levels of government already take or borrow about 40% of GDP. I never stated that all government spending was earmarked to address inequality, but thanks for putting words in my mouth to that effect.

I do have an interesting POV, one that precludes me from ever being accepted or welcomed in leftist circles:

I oppose any and all tax increases, because… it is a fact that the federal government alone currently wastes, conservatively estimated, close to 2% of GDP, or $300 billion, just between the Pentagon, Social Security, and Medicare.

Of course, it’s possible the government doesn’t waste a penny, as Minority Leader Pelosi has often claimed, and I’m just a troll who knows nothing about government spending.